“A New Brain,” the musical by William Finn, is a show about a young composer who has been diagnosed with an arteriovenous malformation in his brain stem. Hospital beds, surgeries, drips and MRIs rarely make appearances in hit musicals, which explains why “A New Brain” never made it to Broadway...

If audiences turned out to the Auditorium Theatre over the weekend expecting to see an Olympic-style spectacle, they surely left disappointed. While Shen Wei, the MacArthur “genius”-award winning director of the New York-based company Shen Wei Dance Arts did, indeed, choreograph the opening ceremonies...

“That was a great show," one audience member said hopefully to another as they walked out of the Chicago Theatre on Thursday after the first of a sold out, four-night run of legendary comedian Chris Rock’s “Total Blackout Tour.” The reply, when it came a few long seconds later, was more confident...

It’s been more than 10 years since the Chicago Human Rhythm Project, one of Chicago’s top tap dance companies, last performed at the Dance Center of Columbia College. As the venue’s 2017-18 season opener, CHRP is making good on its promise to dance there after a cancellation last spring. Rumors...

Over its 40-year history, Chicago’s Hubbard Street Dance has continuously expanded the constraints of contemporary dance and embraced theatrics. If you’ve seen the company in performance recently, maybe a world premiere from Brian Brooks or a Twyla Tharp revival or the genre-defying Second City...

A small but enthusiastic crowd assembled at Skokie’s North Shore Center for the Performing Arts for Visceral Dance Chicago’s fall offering, the official season opener for the fledgling company’s fifth season. The program, which will show again Oct. 7 at the Harris Theater, is mostly greatest hits...

The first of two programs in this year’s Harvest Chicago Contemporary Dance Festival (through Sept. 16 at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts) begins with Alicia Diaz’s “Deep Listening,” a duet between Diaz and musician Hector “Coco” Barez, which appears to be improvised, but there are enough magic...

Broadway

The Tony Award-winning musical "Dear Evan Hansen" will be coming to Chicago as part of its 2018-19 national tour, Broadway in Chicago announced Thursday. The news means we will not get our own "sit-down" Chicago production of the biggest hit of the last Broadway season, a disappointment, but it...

The National Theatre production of Tony Kushner's vaunted American fantasia, "Angels in America," is to move to Broadway in the spring, it was announced Thursday morning. The British production, directed by Mariann Elliott, stars Andrew Garfield and Nathan Lane. Billed as "a strictly limited 18-week...

Near the start of “Prince of Broadway,” the long-awaited musical celebration of a theatrical director of incomparable productivity, range, longevity, chutzpah and brio, an actor pops out and blinks at the audience. “My name is Hal Prince,” says the actor. "I've been directing on Broadway for seven...

"Dear Evan Hansen," the emotionally charged and wholly original musical about a troubled high school student whose very human travails explode over the heartless channels of social media, emerged triumphant at the 71st annual Tony Awards Sunday at the Radio City Music Hall in New York. "Evan Hansen"...

Beyond Chicago

A vista of the pressures faced by Disney Theatrical Productions fills the lobby of the Denver Center for the Performing Arts: Hundreds of bubbly children and unabashed adults dressed as Elsa, Anna, even the rotund sidekick Olaf, the animated snowman peripheral and problematic for a live Broadway...

Hamilton

The popular "Ham4Ham" ticket lottery is changing its rules for the Chicago production of "Hamilton," following in the footsteps of a similar new procedure in New York. In place of the previous system of "Hamilton" hopefuls applying online in the morning for randomly assigned $10 tickets for the...

Your next shot at scoring “Hamilton” tickets is coming up next week. Producer Jeffrey Seller and Broadway In Chicago announced Wednesday that a new block of tickets for the Chicago production of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Tony-winning hip-hop history lesson will go on sale Aug. 29. The new tickets will...

No need to wait for it. The official “Hamilton” app is here. The HamApp, sure to please fans of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Founding Fathers phenomenon, is available now for iOS and Android devices in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, Miranda and “Hamilton” producer Jeffrey Seller announced Friday....